from my days here.”
“Except they don’t use muskets anymore.”
“Right. So the guy who was supposed to meet her here knows to pull off on the gravel so as not to leave tire marks. Follow me.” We walked across the gravel, which was crisscrossed with the impressions of dozens of tires, none of them distinct enough in the crushed stone to be worth photographing or trying to get a cast of. But as we got past the bleachers of rifle range five, the gravel thinned, and with the flashlight we could make out tire marks where no truck or car should have been. The tire marks continued toward a stand of scrub pine, then stopped. I said, “Any vehicle parked here would not be seen from the road, but he did leave his tire marks.”
“Paul, this is incredible. These could be the tire marks of the perpetrator.”
“These are probably the tire marks of the person who met her here. The person did not want his vehicle seen by a passing MP patrol or by the guard truck that would have come by this way at about 0100 hours to relieve the guard at the ammo shed a kilometer up the road, and to post PFC Robbins at that shed. This person was already here before that time and parked here, then walked on the back trail to rifle range six and went into the latrine to wait. While there, he may have used the latrine and may have washed his face and hands, leaving water spots and a hair behind. Logical so far?”
“So far.”
“Let’s walk.” We found the back trail, made from small logs laid side by side to form an all-weather road or path, what the Army calls a corduroy surface. This surface left no footprints. We followed it for about a hundred meters through the brush until it came out into the area behind the latrines of rifle range six. “Okay, the guy waits here, in or around the latrines. The first thing he sees is the guard truck going up the road to the ammo shed, then, a while later, the truck returns after having relieved the original guard and posting Robbins. The truck does not go all the way to main post, where it may have met Ann Campbell coming the other way. It turns off toward Jordan Field to post and relieve guards at the hangars, which takes a while. I recall that from when I was stationed here. So Ann Campbell probably did not cross the path of the guard truck and proceeded directly to range six. She extinguished her headlights at some point and parked the humvee where we found it on the road. Okay?”
“So far. But it’s all speculation.”
“Right. That’s what reenactment mostly is. You’re here to find holes, not tell me I’m making it up.”
“All right. Go on.”
“Okay. The person waiting here near the latrines sees her stop her humvee on the road, and he walks across this open area—” I began to walk toward the road, and Cynthia followed. “He approaches Ann Campbell, who is in or near her humvee, and tells her that the guard truck has come and gone, as it should have by this time, and there’s nothing to worry about now, except perhaps a random MP patrol. But that’s not likely out here. This road dead-ends at range ten, and there will be no through traffic. The only other people who might come by are the officer of the guard or the sergeant of the guard, but they would not come out this way so soon after the changing of the guard, and, most likely, they wouldn’t bother at all. The only other person who would conceivably come out here is the post duty officer, and on this night, the duty officer is Captain Ann Campbell. Follow?”
“Up to a point. Why would she pull up here? Why not hide her vehicle if she was here for a sexual rendezvous? In fact, why the hell was she on the rifle range, so close to the road?”
“I’m not sure. Except that whatever she did, she did it the way she wanted to do it. None of this was random, and everything was planned, including apparently volunteering for duty officer on a moonlit night. Therefore, she had a reason for leaving her vehicle right here, and a reason for picking that spot, fifty meters from the road.”
“Okay… we’ll let that slide.”
“So, to continue, I have no idea what transpired between her and the person she met, but at some point here on the road, she took off her pistol, then all her clothes except her bra and panties. She had a blacktop smudge on her foot. She and this person walked on the well-trod path between the firing lanes. Her clothes and pistol were probably back in the jeep. She, or the other person, is carrying tent pegs, precut rope, and a small sledgehammer. They pick their spot at the base of that pop-up target over there.” We both looked out onto the range. The pavilion was still pitched, and the tarpaulins were still laid out to form a trail to the spot where the body had lain. I asked Cynthia, “How does this sound so far?”
“It has its own internal logic. But I don’t get it.”
“Neither do I. But it’s pretty much what happened.” I said, “Let’s walk.” We followed the tarpaulin trail and stopped under the pavilion. Cynthia shined her flashlight on the spot where Ann Campbell had lain, revealing an outline of the spread-eagled body made with white chalk powder. Yellow marker flags stuck out of the holes where the tent pegs had been.
Cynthia said, “Shouldn’t there be MPs here?”
“There should be. Kent slipped up.” I looked out over the moonlit rifle range where about fifty lifelike targets stood like a platoon of infantry advancing through the brush. I said to Cynthia, “Obviously, this had some symbolism for Ann Campbell—armed men coming to gang-rape her, or watching her as she was tied naked on the ground—or who knows what she was trying to create or express?”
Cynthia said, “All right, they’re standing here. Ann Campbell in her bra and panties, this man carrying the rape kit or sexual paraphernalia if she’s a willing accomplice. He’s not armed, and she’s going along with this.”
“Right. So together they bind one end of each rope around her wrists and ankles. Probably at this point, she removes her bra and panties and puts the panties around her neck, since we found no trace of soil on them.”
“Why did she wear the bra?”
“I can’t say for sure, but she may have just left it on without thinking, then threw it on the ground where we found it. They’ve planned this, but they’re understandably a little nervous. Okay?”
“Okay. I’m nervous just talking about it.”
“So they pick their spot at the base of this pop-up target, she lies down here, spreads her arms and legs, and he pounds the four tent pegs into the ground.”
“Doesn’t this make noise?”
“The pegs were polyvinyl. Also, he may have used a handkerchief to muffle the sound. The wind is blowing from the direction of the guard post a kilometer away, and PFC Robbins couldn’t even hear a car door slam.”
“All right,” Cynthia said. “The tent pegs are in, and he ties her ankles and wrists to the pegs.”
“Correct. Then he wraps the long rope around her neck, over the panties.”
“So she’s now as we found her.”
“Yes,” I said, “she is now as we found her, except, at this point, she was still alive.”
Cynthia had one hand in the pocket of her pants now and was staring at the ground where her flashlight beam ended, obviously deep in thought. Finally, she said, “He knelt near her and applied tension to the rope, inducing sexual asphyxia. Maybe, using his fingers, or an object, he stimulates her. She had an orgasm…” Cynthia added, “He would have masturbated at some point though we found no semen on her, and he may have taken photos, which is common after going through all this trouble. I’ve had cases where an audiotape was made, and one where a videotape was made…” She paused a moment, then continued, “All right… she’s done, he’s done, she wants to be untied. At this point, he snaps for some reason and strangles her to death, or he’d planned to do that all along, or he may have honestly strangled her by accident during the act.” She looked at me. “That’s it, isn’t it?”
“Yes. I think so.”
“But there’s more to it,” Cynthia reminded me. “Her clothes, dog tags, her West Point ring, and her pistol are missing.”
“I know. That’s a problem.” I said, “We’re back to souvenirs.”
“Yes, they do take souvenirs. But you know, if I had just killed a general’s daughter out on the rifle range, on purpose or by accident, I don’t think I’d put her clothes in my car and drive around with the evidence that would put me in front of a firing squad.”
“Not likely, is it? And remember, she had her watch on. Why?”
“I don’t know,” Cynthia replied. “That may be insignificant.”
“It may be. Let’s walk.” We retraced our steps along the tarpaulin path and came back to the road where Ann Campbell’s humvee had been parked. “All right,” I said, “he comes back here to the vehicle. He takes her BDUs, her helmet, dog tags, socks, boots, and so forth, but leaves her handbag on the passenger seat of the vehicle.”
“He may have forgotten the handbag. Men often do. I’ve seen that before.”
